FARNHAM HUNDRED 



Castle stands, and crosses the ridge of the chalk, 

 which is here at its narrowest, about half a mile 

 wide and includes small parts of the Woolwich and 

 Read'ing beds, and of the London day north of 

 them, and some of the Bagshot sand. The town 

 of Farnham is on the sand and gravel of the river 

 bed. Patches of the river gravel occur as high as 

 150 feet above the present level of the stream. 

 But the characteristic scenery of the southern part 

 of the parish and of the larger part, is that of the 

 ereensand region, broken hills and moorland 

 covered originally with fern and heather, and still 

 but partially cultivated. The old centres of habi- 

 tation, Farnham itself, Waverley, Tilford and 

 Wrecclesham, lie either right on the stream or on 

 the slopes near above it. In the valleys of the 

 Wey and of its tributaries there seems always to 

 have been a good deal of wood, and Alice Holt (or 

 Alder Holt) Forest is on the south-west border of 

 the parish over the Hampshire frontier. But the 

 conifers, which are now so thickly planted on parts 

 of Farnham Common and on Crooksbury Hill, are 

 of comparatively recent introduction. Crooks- 

 bury HjII is perhaps the most striking natural 

 feature of the parish. It rises in a conical form 

 above the valley near Waverley, to a height of 

 534 feet above sea-level. The trees upon it are so 

 disposed as to accentuate still further its conical 

 form when seen from the east, so that it has the 

 appearance of another Glastonbury Tor rising 

 above its ancient abbey. 



In the extreme north the parish touches the 

 Bagshot sand and gravel of the Aldershot moor- 

 lands, the Blackheathfield of the old hundred. 

 But below this the chalk ridge and the soils which 

 lie on each side of it are more fertile but less pic- 

 turesque than the lower greensand region. The 

 Farnham hops, which have or had a special fame, 

 were originally the growth of this part of the 

 parish below the edge and under the shelter of the 

 chalk on the upper greensand and gault. The 

 hop-gardens were extended into the other parts of 

 the parish where suitable exposure and shelter 

 could be found, but not of course on to the exposed 

 and barren moorland. 



The capacities of Farnham for making money 

 existed mostly in the northern part of the parish, 

 and were not purely agricultural, even allowing for 

 the value of the hop-grounds. The place was im- 

 porunt as a market for a large district, because it 

 lay at the junction of two roads which came to- 

 gether at Farnham owing to the geological and 

 geographical conditions of the site. The chalk 

 downs were the natural lines for roads in primitive 

 times, when the lower country was marshy or 

 uncleared. The original Pilgrims' Way, the 



FARNHAM 



nnitf 7f'"'"^' ^"'}''}^y ^''"^^ ^ "ttle to the 

 The later anH 7. "' ^""'^^" ='1°"8 '^^ <^h 'k 

 Fornhll ' A *'^^P'■"«"t 'ozd, ran through 

 Farnham, and two m.les and a quarter to the east 

 of the town forked .nto two at Whiteway End 

 The older branch probably went up the chalk 

 down, along the Hog's Back ridge, with no ancient 

 village on it till it came to Guildford.M while the 

 medieval route passed through the villages south 

 of the Hog s Back. But in any case, the line of 

 travel from the south-west to east ran through 

 I'arnham.'s Furthermore the great fault in the 

 strata which occurs two miles north by east of 

 Farnham <» makes a depression in the chalk, where 

 the Hog's Back ends, which marked this as the spot 

 where the chalk could be conveniently crossed from 

 north to south. The road from London to South- 

 ampton came accordingly through Farnham. It 

 left the main road from London to the south-west 

 a little beyond Bagshot, came into Surrey north- 

 east of Farnham, and joined the Pilgrims' Way 

 east of the town." 



It was its position on these roads which made the 

 place so important as a market. ' It is the greatest 

 market in England for wheat . . . most commonly 

 bet^veen All Saints' Day and Midsummer Day two 

 hundred and fifty loads of wheat are sold one week 

 with another; sometimes four hundred loads in 

 a day . . . from Michaelmas to Christmas the 

 market here is good for oats, and a great market for 

 Welsh stockings.' 's It was in the early part of 

 the seventeenth century that the market had be- 

 come thus famous. The concourse of farmers 

 was independent of the hop growing, which was 

 then a recent industry, begun in a small way in 

 1597, and as yet the hops were mostly sold at Wey- 

 hill Fair. 



The manufacture of the green pots, much used 

 at the Inner and Middle Temple and elsewhere, is 

 as old as or older than the sixteenth century. The 

 clay from which they were made was in all proba- 

 bility found in the Old Park and gives the name to 

 Clay Pits Wood on the site of the Old Park.»» A 

 share in the cloth trade which existed in so many 

 towns and villages of West Surrey also helped to 

 make the town prosperous. But it was its place 

 on a great road and the through traffic entailed, 

 that gave Farnham much of its importance and 

 gave early eminence to its great inn, the Bush. 



The same geological feature, the great fault 

 which brought the Southampton Road through 

 Farnham, has brought the railway there. The 

 line from London by Woking Junction and Aider- 

 shot to Winchester and Southampton, opened in 

 1852, comes to Farnham through the natural de- 

 pression, and is joined there by the Guildford and 

 Farnham line utilizing the same dip. 



This waa paved as a turnpike road 

 JJ '758 by Act of Parliament 31 



jn, "^ '*' *"" " «i"«'l a» ' "rata 

 at GeUtdim' in 1192. Pipe R. 4. 

 Rich. I. m. id. 

 "Captain James, R.E., Tbi Pil- 



<<'7i. It has been ^uestioneiK whether 



this was a Pilgrims' Way or the name 

 a late invention. 



" V.C.H.Surr. i. 22. 



" Ogilby, Book of Roads and Bri- 

 tannia Depicta, or Ogilhy imfrovid. 

 Lond. 1720, p. 129. 



'8 Aubrey, Perambulation of Surrey, 

 iii. 347, published in 1719, but the 



descriptions apply to the previous cen- 

 tury. His account is borne out by the 

 Farnham Borough accounts of the 

 amounts received from toll-houses for 

 wheat. ^ . 



i» Loseley MSS. ix. 118, Aug. 19, 

 1594. Letter from Sir Julius Caesar 

 to Sir William More. 



